Don't send in the Clowns
by ScorpionInx
Summary: Gotham's one request: Don't send in the clowns. But without them, who would set up the explosives or torment Rachel Dawes and the other inhabitants of Gotham? Dedicated to the Joker's crew. With them, all things are possible. Nolanverse
1. Somewhere safe

**I should not have to put a disclaimer becuase it is obvious I do not own any part of the Batman franchise.**

**I scrapped my other story cause I did not like it. Too many Joker/Harley Quinn stories out there.**

**Not that it is a bad thing. But I like variety.**

**This is just a story for my own amusement, if you like it too . . . Hooray for you.**

* * *

An explosion shook the night. Windows rattled and awnings thrummed as pressure waves traveled through it. A second blast was occuring across town at the exact same time. Rachel felt the shock of the blast in the blacktop under her feet, as if a fossilized _Tyrannosaurus rex_ in the deep rock strata were stirring in its eternal sleep, and saw the dragon's breath of fire in the east -southeast, just around the corner.

"Show time," the clown with the gun shoved Rachel into the front passengers seat before crawling into the back seat to sit behind her. The other clown slid behind the wheel.

Tears streamed down her face as she thought of Harvey. Did Harvey make it out in time? Things were taking a strange turn of events. She should have been inside the building when it exploded, but apparently the Joker had changed his mind. Two of his masked goons had come and dragged her out of the building after slapping a piece of tape over her mouth.

She looked to the clown driving. A big burly fellow with red diamonds painted over his eyes. Hands encased in black, fingerless gloves gripped the steering wheel tight as the car tore through back alleyways with the headlights off. Clearly the clown knew the back ways and was not using the lights to avoid detection by the cops. The police and fire departments were focused on putting out the fires.

Then there was the clown in the backseat. Smaller than the others, thinner too. The mask was white with a blue five o'clock shadow, red circles on the cheeks and the tip of the nose.

"Here's the deal Rachel. You are dead. Done with. Gone. Pushing daisies." The clown driving glanced at her briefly. "Get the hell out of Gotham and don't look back. This is a one time thing. You contact anyone and let them know otherwise, we'll find you. We'll kill you. Permanently. And we'll kill everyone who comes into contact with you. Do you understand?"

Rachel sat in silence.

Once they were sufficiently far enough outside of Gotham, he slammed the brakes which caused Rachel to slam into the dashboard. Leaving her momentarily stunned. There was the sharp burning pain as the tape was ripped off of her mouth. Then the barrel of a gun pressed against the side of her head painfully.

"Take it or we shoot you here and leave your body to rot beside the road."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Rachel's voice was tear-strained and weary.

"Its nothing personal." The driver answered her. There was a soft click as the hammer was drawn back on the gun. "Make your choice Rachel. Give up Harvey and Bruce and Gotham. Or my friend splatter your brains all over the dash. Tick tock, think fast."

"Times up." The clown in the backseat suddenly shifted, bringing the gun around, there was a loud explosion inside the car as the trigger was pulled. Rachel screamed. The driver never had time to register that the gun had been turned on him. Gore, little bits of bone and gray matter coated the driver's door. He slumped forward onto the steering wheel, setting off the horn.

Rachel sobbed as she clawed at the door handle only to find that there wasn't one.

"Shut up already!" The backseat clown slapped her. The voice behind the mask was distinctively female. Then the clown leaned forward, over the seat and across the dead man's lap. The door was opened and the dead man was shoved out of the vehicle as the other clown took his place. She rolled down the window after shutting the door again. "Woman-to-woman, that guy was an asshole. Just talk, talk, talk. All the time. Its annoying."

"What do you want from me?" Rachel sniffled.

"A smile and a few kind words." They were on the road again, heading back in to Gotham.

"Where are you taking me?"

"Some where safe. The one place no one will look for you. And even if you told them who you were, no one would believe you." The clown seemed very amused. "You should thank me. Everyone else wants you dead. The cops were never coming for you. Batman wasn't coming for you either."

Rachel felt a sense of dread forming in the pit of her stomach.

"Poor little Rachel. No one seems to care if you live or die. But I care."

"Why are you doing this to me? Why me?" Rachel wanted to scream.

"_Why me_?" The clown answered in a mocking tone. "Call it my good deed for the year."

Rachel went to say something, but pain blossomed across the left side of her face and all she knew was darkness. A heavy darkness that stretched on for what seemed like an eternity. Rachel would have stayed in the darkness. While it seemed like only moments had past since she closed her eyes, clearly it had been longer. Her body felt so heavy. Weighed down. She couldn't move.

She struggled to open her eyes.

Icy terror gripped her heart as she took in her situation. She was strapped facedown on a cot. The room she was in was small. The walls lightly padded. Off in the distance she could hear howls and screams. So far away and yet so close. There was the clanking of metal against metal. Heavy doors and bars. So familiar and alien at the same time.

Arkham Asylum.

Rachel closed her eyes and began to scream.


	2. Contagious?

Rachel was alone.

Her head was buzzing again. Wasps in there. A hive between her ears.

Craziness.

She shuddered, hating the disorder of her thoughts. Was insanity a germ? Could you inhale it, like the flu bug, from an infected atmosphere?

She had not been crazy the night she had been abducted. She was sure of that.

But now . . .

No longer could she seem to keep her thinking straight. She had periods of sharp clarity, when she knew what day it was and how she'd gotten here, but there were other times - more and more frequently - when she was adrift on a raft of strangeness, in a calm yet angry sea.

Losing her mind.

Fear rose in her, a peculiar disembodied fear that clutched at her sense of self and made her small and helpless and not a person, somehow.

The fear was what she hated most of all.

The fear . . . and the Joker.

The Joker, yes. Hold on to that. Cling to the certainty of evil. Evil was something hard and real, and she could not lose herself wholly as long as there was one real thing in her world.

She blinked the fear away, and looked around at the room. An isolation cell, they called it. The rooms were poorly heated at night, and there were bugs, brown and shiny like scurrying pennies. She hated them too.

The room was small. She had paced it today - or last night? She didn't know. Time had blurred, melted. Hours were minutes were days.

But the room . . . Stay focused. Look at the room.

Small. Three paces by four.

A bed - just a cot with rubber sheets - rubber so that if she should wet herself, the sheets could be hosed clean.

Steel toilet in a corner, not hidden, no privacy, and any nurse, guard, or orderly who wished to look through the plate-glass window in the door might catch her squatting there.

A shiver hurried through her body like a fever chill. She hugged herself, rocking on her haunches as she crouched on the linoleum floor.

The round hole in the door was the room's only window. She had no view of the outside world. She never saw daylight. There was no clock, and they had taken her wristwatch. Whoever they were. Morning was when the attendant came with a breakfast tray, noon was the lunch tray, evening the dinner tray.

A single chair rested in a corner. It was plastic, with wobbly legs and no armrests and no seat cushion. Dr. Quinzel used the chair when she came for their therapy sessions daily.

And that was it. That was all there was for her - the bed and the commode and the chair where Dr. Quinzel sat, and the tile floor that was cold against her bare feet.

Rachel had kicked off her slippers, but she still wore the orange cotton outfit they'd dressed her in, the uniform of the condemned.

For the first day she had been strapped facedown to the bed, and when she started screaming, they wedged a rubber throttle in her mouth. Then there had been nothing she do except lie motionless on the waterproof sheets, hearing the howls from down the hall, waiting for the nurse to enter with the syringe.

Injections every day. Always in her left arm, now purple with bruises. Medicine, they told her. She wondered.

Dr. Quinzel visited her on that first day also, Dr. Quinzel who had shown such solicitous concern. Rachel swore that the 'good' Doc was in league with the Joker. She was probably the backseat clown with the gun. But the voice was different.

Later she had been set free.

A nurse and some orderlies had unstrapped her from the bed, leaving her at liberty within the room's close confines. Rachel believed it was three or four days ago that this modest emancipation had occured. She wasn't certain, though. It might have been yesterday - or tomorrow. It might have been next month or a million years in the future.

_You're in sad shape, girl,_ a voice said.

Harvey's voice.

She'd been hearing him a lot lately. At first she had welcomed him. But now an unmistakable hostility had seeped into his speech, and he frightened her.

Everything frightened her.

The small room and the rubber bedding and the nurses with their needles and the screams from the far end of the ward and the Joker, of course, always the Joker, never forget the Joker.

_You're a wily one, sure, but you're done for now._

"Done for," Rachel murmured. Eyes shut, she drew her knees up against her chin and huddled in the tight knot of her pain.


	3. Hello Nurse

Ward B of Arkham Asylum - the back ward, as it was called - was reserved for the chronically ill, the violent, and those patients known as forensic cases. The latter cohort consisted of patients held for observation in advance of a criminal proceeding. Walter Cortland had been sequestered here in 1998 after he slit his mother's throat with a letter opener and blamed it on the devil. In 2002, Sylvia Farentino had made an appearance, on charges of poisoning her boyfirend with a cup of lye in the pancake batter. And in 2005, who could forget the incarceration of dear Doctor Jonathon Crane, one of Arkham's own physicians.

There had been others, generally less colorful. Drifters arrested for vagrancy, whose thought processes were too disorganized to be called normal. Drug addicts whose brains had been perhaps permanently scrambled by PCP or crack. Victims of last year's release of fear toxin. Petty criminals with IQs so low that it was impossible to determine if they were competent to assist in their own defense.

And now there was Rachel Dawes.

Jeannie Renier smiled at the thought as she used her passkey to open Ward B's exterior door. The door was steel, and like all ward doors it was key-operated on both sides. A turn of the passkay was required both to enter and to exit. This precaution ensured that no patient could slip past an inattentive nurse or guard, or orderly and simply walk away.

It meant also that any staff member who mislaid the passkey would be imprisoned in the ward until help arrived. Jeannie had no problem with this. A certain measure of fear kept the staff alert. And she was pleased to note that in the past ten years not a single key had been lost by an employee.

But with all of these measures, how was it that many had managed to escape Arkham?

That answer was easy.

They didn't escape on their own, they were let out.

Allowed to escape.

Several key members of the staff had been loyal to Henri Ducard and remained loyal to his goals after his death. They orchestrated escapes from Arkham from time to time. Why should Gotham be allowed to return to any sense of normalcy or safety? And with the arrival of the Joker in Gotham, many saw the oppurtunity to fulfill Henri's plan of the destruction of the city. So they were more than willing to turn a blind eye to some of the darker activities of their employees.

Not everyone in the hospital was corrupt. There were a few 'good' people.

Antiseptic smells, common throughout the hospital, greeted Jeannie as she let the door swing shut. The floor and walls of each ward were scrubbed daily. Antibacterial sprays were applied to desktops and door handles. Every metal and tile surface gleamed.

She moved forward, past the alcove that led to the O.R., where nonpharmaceutical methods were occassionally employed on especially recalcitrant patients. Beyond the alcove was the nurses' station - a desk and a couple of folding chairs, a few file cabinets, and a closed-circuit television monitor that switched between three grainy black-and-white images of the ward's three intersecting halls.

When timed just right, Jeannie could make the rounds and not be detected on the monitors as the images switched through their timed rotations. It was also how they managed to sneak out patients from time to time or bring in contraband items.

It was the beginning of the three-to-eleven shift. Dana Cunningham was just coming on as well. A tall, large-boned woman, she was capable of wrestling a two-hundred pound patient to the floor.

Jeannie waved to her as she ducked into the private lounge to put away her belongings. When she returned, Dana was in the middle of a conversation with Dr. Harleen Quinzel. Jeannie had gone to high school with Harleen, they had graduated the same year.

"It's about Amanda Cray." Dana sighed as she talked to Dr. Quinzel.

"I'm on my way to see her right now. Her daily therapy, you know." Dr. Quinzel nodded her head. Her honey-blonde hair was pulled up into a simple chignon. Dark frame glasses resting on the bridge of her nose. Light blue eyes were focused intently on the burly nurse.

"I'm getting concerned." Dana replied.

Jeannie took a sit at the desk and was going over her files for the day. Listening intently to the conversation without being obvious about it. Amanda Cray was the false name she had created for Rachel. The file was easy enough for her to duplicate, she had just made minor adjustments to a file belonging to the original Amanda Cray, one of Arkham's previous tenants. A clerical error had occured and the patient's file was never updated to the status of being released three years ago.

It had been perfect. Amanda had been a schizophrenic who heard voices and often claimed to be other people. Women she had seen on the news. As for the photo, there was not one. Another clerical error that Jeannie had taken advantage of.

Majority of the staff was new, having only been there a few years or mere months like in Dana's case. It would be a long time, if ever, before the truth might be discovered.

"I'm seeing side effects to the medication. Tremors, agitation, restlessness . . ."

Dr. Quinzel waved off this objection with a flutter of her hand. "If we lowered the dose for every patient who exhibited those symptoms, we'd have a hospital full of unmedicated florid schizophrenics."

"But we may be _over_medicating in this case. If anything, she's become more agitated over the past week. I'm told she refused her breakfast this morning, and at lunchtime she threw the tray at the tech who brought it in." Dana sighed. "She hasn't eaten anything all day. She's clearly decompensating."

"Then the dose should be increased, not reduced." Jeannie spoke up. Looking to Dr. Quinzel, she handed her the file on 'Amanda'. "This behavior is common for her when her medication is reduced. She becomes violent, lashes out and goes on a hunger strike for a few hours." It was all in the file for them to see.

"Maybe we should cut back to eight hundred milligrams of chlorpromazine and forty milligrams of trifluoperazine. That still ought to be high enough for a loading dose. If her condition continues to deteriorate, we could try a different strategy . . . " Dana Cunningham was one of the few 'good' people working in the Asylum. She was blissfully unaware of the activities going on around her. As far as she knew, Amanda Cray was just some one who had been transfered to their ward after attacking one of the other patients.

"The other day she started screaming about how she was Rachel Dawes." Jeannie added.

Dr. Quinzel considered that fact for a moment. Rachel Dawes was dead. They had been showing her on the news as of late, which probably where Amanda had gotten the name from. "I'll tell you what," she said smoothly. "Why don't we continue with the current dosage schedule today, and tomorrow we'll look at a reduction?"

Dana didn't like it, but she had sufficient sense not to argue. "Okay, Doctor."

"Jeannie, I would like you to handle it." Dr. Quinzel then excused herself.

Jeannie was glad the conversation was over. Not only was it irrelevant but premised on an entirely faulty supposition. Amanda/Rachel was indeed becoming more agitated and disturbed, not as a consequence of any antipsychotic drug.

She was not, in fact, receiving any antipsychotic drugs.

The vials used by the nurses for Amanda Cray's three daily intramuscular injections - vials Jeannie herself had mixed - contained no chlorpromazine, no trifluoperazine. They contained only methylamphetamine, the most potent amphetamine available, in an extraordinarily concentrated dose.

Speed, in street parlance. That was the medication that dear Rachel was on.

She had been taking the drug for the past week, receiving more than three hundred milligrams of meth each time she was injected by the unwitting nurses. Three injections daily. Nearly one thousand milligrams in total, day after day after day.

Methylamphetamine's psychotropic effects were gradual and cumulative. During the first two days Rachel had been lucid. For that reason, Jeannie had kept her strapped down, with a bite block in her mouth. She didn't want her saying too much, raising doubts among the staff.

On the third day the drug had begun to take hold. By now it had nearly taken full control of her.

The symptoms of amphetamine psychosis were almost identical to those of acute schizophrenia. Rachel was hearing voices, harsh and accusatory. The close weave of her thought processes had unraveled. She was scared, scared all the time.

Even the most experienced nurses and new doctors like Harleen would not be able to distinguish her behavior from that of a genuine psychopath. No one could doubt that she belonged here, in the ranks of the insane.

It was beautiful.


	4. Too Easy

At seven o'clock, midway through her three-to-eleven shift, Nurse Jeannie Renier headed down the hallway of Ward B, making her evening rounds. Checking on different patients to make sure they were not harming themselves and were reacting badly to the medications they had been given. Last thing they needed was for one of the patients to have a bad reaction, slip unconcious and choke on their own vomit.

An orderly walked beside her. Jeannie never entered the room of any patient, violent or not, without backup. This was a lesson she'd learned a few years ago when she first came to work at Arkham. A patient had attacked her with the pull-tab of a soda can, gouged the left corner of her mouth and cheek. It could have been worse. And she never blamed the patient, it wasn't his fault. Not entirely. Like caged animals, eventually they bite the hand that feeds and cares for them.

She didn't mind the scar. It was helpful. It was a reminder.

Jeannie's rubber-soled shoes squeaked on the tile floor, but otherwise the ward was quiet. Most of the patients - those who were permitted free run of the hospital's common areas throughout waking hours - were still in the commissary finishing dinner, or in the day hall watching TV.

A few of the hard cases lingered in their rooms, but they were so heavily sedated as to be barely sentient.

"Nurse! Nurse Renier! _Nurse_!"

Jeannie heard the calling of her name and the sound of a hand pounding on the glass. It was coming from the room she had put Rachel in. She was careful to keep her face stern and a little sad. It would not do for her to smile and give the game away, not yet anyway.

"Yes, Amanda?" Jeannie addressed her through the glass window.

"I need to talk to you." That was good, it had come out fine, it had sounded calm and lucid. Rachel was trying so hard to stay focused.

"Go ahead."

"Can you open the door?" Rachel pleaded.

"I'm afraid not." Hesitation. Jeannie noted that the orderly was oblivious to the conversation. "I saw what you did to Dr. Quinzel. That was bad, Amanda. You mustn't keep misbehaving like that."

Dr. Quinzel? What had she done to her? For a moment Rachel could not recall.

"Attacking Dr. Quinzel liek that, scratching up her face." Jeannie shook her head in disappointment.

Rachel was silent for few moments. Her mind racing as she tried to recall what had happened. Oh, yes, scratched her cheek - a few lines of blood, quickly dabbed up with a handkerchief. By why did she do it?

"I need your help," Rachel whispered.

The nurse tapped her ear impatiently, and Rachel realized the words had been inaudible through the glass. She repeated herself more loudly. "I need your help."

"We all want to help you."

"You have to believe me. My name is Rachel Dawes. I'm not suppose to be in here. Please."

"Oh, Amanda." No trace of belief in Jeannie's voice, only a tired pity.

"It's true. I know it sounds . . . I know you think I'm . . . But I'm not." No one listened. No one believed. No one cared. No one could be counted on. No one anywhere, ever. "It's true!" she screamed in a rush of uncontainable frustration, and suddenly she was beating her fists on the glass and weeping. "It's true, why won't anybody help me, what's wrong with all of you people, what's the matter with you?"

Rachel sagged. She pressed her face against the glass, feeling its cold kiss. "You bitch," she whispered. "Stupid, stupid bitch."

"I'm sorry." Jeannie said from what seemed like a great distance. When Rachel did not respond, she added, as if it would make anything better. "Your dinner will be here shortly."

"Don't want dinner."

"You need to eat. You had no breakfast, no lunch."

"Not hungry," she said, though she was.

Jeannie lingered. "Sometimes, I wonder why I even try." Her shoes squeaked again as she stalked off down the hall.

It was the sound of hope retreating . . . fading . . . gone.

Rachel turned away from the door and stumbled to the bed and fell on it, her fist jammed in her mouth, her whole body shaking as she contracted into a fetal curl.

When out of sight of Rachel, Jeannie allowed herself a private smile. This was just too easy. Now the patient was convinced that she had attacked Dr. Quinzel. Jeannie could only imagine the surprise on Rachel's face when the good doctor shows up tomorrow without a scratch.

The pager at her side suddenly vibrated. She unclipped it from her belt and held it up to where she could read the number. Later, once she was home, she would call the number and find out what he wanted. But not now. Never call him from a business phone. She had a prepaid phone at the house specifically for that purpose.


	5. Wheels on the Bus

The clowns began to unload the cargo. There were at least a hundred one-kilo bricks of a gray substance wrapped in what appeared to be greasy, translucent paper. Three of them worked quickly, tirelessly. They were obviously happy to be occupied in useful criminal activity.

While his associates distributed bricks of plastic explosives to all points of the subcellar, in this room and others, the Joker sat at the table. With the help of only one other clown, Punch, he carefully synchronized the clocks on more than a dozen detonators. Then these detonators would be sequenced in to one main detonator that he would carry with him.

He hunched over his work, concentrating intensely. He pinched his tongue gently between his teeth. Hair fell across his forehead, and he kept brushing it back, out of his eyes.

If you squinted, blurring the scene just a little, he looked like a twelve-year-old hobbyist assembling a plastic model of a Navy fighter jet.

A twelve-year-old hobbyist dressed as a nurse. Wearing a red wig.

Then, having synchronized the final detonator, Punch presented it to the Joker.

"Finish up in here," the Joker instructed before leaving. He had a meeting to get to.

Punch went to check on the progress. Heading through the maze of corridors, arriving just as Crinkles, Honkers and Slappy finished placing the last of the explosives in place.

Punch shot Honker in the chest, Crinkles in the back, and Slappy in the side, then pumped two more rounds into each of them as they thrashed, screaming and gurgling, on the floor. The silencer helped to cut down on the noises made.

It was done with.

Punch tossed the gun to the ground. No need to keep it. It was not like there was a shortage of guns in Gotham.

A glance towards the watch revealed that time was short.

Better hurry up.

Punch took off running through the maze of corridors. Finding a way back up to the street level, the mask was removed and stashed quickly under the scrub top, partially tucked into the waistband of the pants.

People were frantic in their rush to get patients out of the hospital safely.

No one paid any attention to one more nurse. Just one more person there to help get the patients loaded on to the buses.

Was there any regret or remorse for killing the other three?

No. Not one ounce.

It had to be done.


	6. Part of the Plan

Rachel heard her coming - the rapid clack of her hard-soled shoes on the corridor's hard tile floor.

A moan escaped her. She knelt on the bed, hugging her knees, waiting.

There was a soft thunk as a pneumatic bolt released, and then the steel door opened, and Dr. Quinzel was there.

"Hello, Amanda."

That smile. How Rachel hated that smile. But it was not the smile that unnerved her the most. It was the fact that Dr. Quinzel's face was not marred by scratches. There were no signs of any recent marks on her skin, not even a blemish. Just that odd little scar on the left corner of her mouth.

Did Dr. Quinzel have that scar yesterday?

"It's so good to see you again," she went on, stepping inside, carefully leaving the door ajar. "I really do look forward to our daily talks." She came closer, studying her, then put on a sympathetic face. "I'm quite concerned about you."

This was just too much to bear.

"Just shut up," Rachel snapped, despising the childish petulance in her voice.

"Amanda." Dr. Quinzel made a tsk-tsk noise as she adjusted her glasses. "That isn't very nice."

When the doctor took a seat on the plastic chair, a yard away from her, Rachel drew back slightly on the bed, wanting more distance between.

"I hear you're not eating," Dr. Quinzel said. "You should. No matter what our emotional travails, we should always maintain our bodies at optimal efficiency. Our bodies are the only part of us that matters, in the end. Mind, ego, personality, all these pretty layers of decorative embroidary that we knit around the primal essence of our being - all of it is an illusion, nothing more."

"The mask of self," Rachel murmured.

Dr. Quinzel registered surprise with a subtle lift of one eyebrow. "How delightful. I did not know you had read Dr. Crane's book."

"Didn't read it. I wouldn't - I would never . . . " Rachel had to take a breath. It was hard to speak in complete sentences. Her thinking was all cloudy. Her head ached.

"I'm disappointed to hear it. I'm sure Dr. Crane would have hoped to include you among his readers." Dr. Quinzel leaned back in the plastic chair, and her smile widened. "Now, of course, there'll be no chance of that. No chance and no hope, _Rachel_ - no hope for you at all."

Rachel's head snapped up when the doctor said her name.

Her name.

_Rachel._

_Rachel._

Not Amanda, but _Rachel_.

So Dr. Quinzel was in on it.

"You bitch," Rachel snarled, fury cresting in her like a hot, boiling wave.

"No need for indelicacy," Dr. Quinzel responded as she started to rise from the chair."How about a smile and maybe a few kind words instead?" Knowing that Rachel would take the bait. Hook, line and sinker.

With a rush of hatred, Rachel lunged. Her hands came up fast, fingers hooking into claws, taking the doctor by surprise, and she caught her in the cheek and raked four deep grooves in her skin. Just like yesterday that wasn't yesterday.

She swiped at her again, but missed, and Dr. Quinzel swung her around, pitching her sideways off the bed onto the hard shock of the floor.

She struggled to rise, couldn't because she was already on top of her, holding her down.

Over her groan of panic she heard commotion in the hall, the nurse shouting, "Jeannie, are you alright?"

_Jeannie? What about Dr. Quinzel?_

Rachel managed to turn her head enough to see that it was one of the nurses holding her down.

Where the hell had the doctor disappeared to?

"I'm fine!" Jeannie called out. "No problem, Dana." She struggled to catch her breath, then added in a softer voice, "No problem at all."

She slipped the syringe from her pocket, using her teeth to help pry off the protective tip before she jabbed the needle into Rachel's hip. The plunger was pressed, then the needle withdrawn.

Then she released her and stood up.

Watching as Rachel rolled onto her side a stared up at her.

The poor woman was struggling to put the facts together, but clearly it wasn't working.

Jeannie left her, shutting the door behind her. Making sure that the lock slid back into place before heading down the hallway. The used syringe was deposited in the hazardous waste disposal box against the wall near the nurse's station.

"Good Lord, did she do that to you?" Dana handed her a napkin.

"I wasn't thinking. Normally I have Harold or Eddie help with the medication rounds." Jeannie blotted her cheek with the napkin. "But with them in Ward C right now, I didn't have much in the way in choices. It was either go in alone, or have the patient miss a dose. And you know how these doctors are. I don't want to be fired just becuase a patient misses a dose."

Jeannie knew the risk when she had gone into the room. And she had baited Rachel intentionally, wanting her to react violently. It would only serve as proof against any doubts that Rachel/Amanda belonged there.

"Are those Dr. Quinzel's glasses?" Dana gestured at the pair that Jeannie had placed on the table.

"Found them in the dall hall earlier." Jeannie finished dabbing her cheek. "I would have returned them to Dr. Quinzel, but today is her day off and her office is locked. So I just tucked them into my pocket so I wouldn't forget."

"You should go get that cleaned up. Put some ointment on it so it does not get infected." Dana motioned for her to go. "Everyone is medicated, and they shouldn't be a problem."

"You're probably right." Jeannie headed off to the infirmary.

Tonight, after her shift was over, she was planning on paying Rachel another visit.


	7. What roots?

Jeannie entered Rachel's room at 12:30, roughly half an hour after her last scheduled injection, when the methylamphetamine would have peaked in her bloodstream, rendering her most vulnerable to attack. Agitated and confused, she was easy to overpower. All Jeannie had to do was pin her down, then slide the needle into Rachel's arm and pump in four milligrams of lorazepam, a strong sedative used on patients undergoing surgery.

It put Rachel to sleep instantly.

The evening shift had been on little more than an hour and a half. They were currently making rounds at the other end of the ward, which gave Jeannie the time she required. With Rachel on a gurney she slipped past the cameras and disappeared into one of the supply rooms.

This particular supply room was selected because it contained a sink and adequate room for the gurney. Only the day shift had key access to the room so Jeannie knew that she would not be disturbed.

She set the brake on the gurney and adjusted it to where Rachel head dangled partially off the thin pad of the gurney. Jeannie had made sure to strip all the linens off before strapping Rachel to it. The vinyl surface would be easier to clean than trying to get rid of any stains.

Pulling on the gloves, she set about her task. Carefully measuring the small tube of chemical into the bottle. Placing one finger over the nozzle as she shook the bottle to mix the contents. Then came the best part; the methodical application of chemical to hair and scalp.

The light scent of green apple turned her stomach a little.

But she had to do what she had to do.

It wouldn't do for 'Amanda' to start developing roots.

After waiting the specified time on the label, Jeannie turned on the water in the sink. Letting the tempature warm up some before she began to rinse the chemicals out of Rachel's hair.

Bye bye brown roots.

Hello dark copper.

It had taken Jeannie an hour or so to find the perfect shade of red the first time, a fairly natural shade of red was not that easy to achieve. Now, all she had to do was maintain the color and make sure she did not go too long between touch ups.

Once she was done with rinsing and the shampooing, she turned her attention to the difficult part. A steady hand and a delicate touch were required to lighten Rachel's eyebrows just a touch. Timing it just right so she could wash them off and not have them turn out to be too light.

She admired her handywork when she was done.

It was all a part of the ruse.

Jeannie could have left her hair it's natural color. Its true. As observant as the staff is, it would still be a few months before anyone noticed that Amanda looked an surprisingly similar to Rachel Dawes.

The hair color threw them off.

It was perfect.

Well, almost perfect.

Jeannie tilted her head to the side, studying the moment very carefully. Something was missing. A flaw in the whole scheme of things. Some minor detail she was missing that could unravel the whole thing.

Then she realized what the problem was.

It was too perfect.

She picked up the remaining conditioner that had come with the kit. Squeezing it out into one palm, she set the tube down, then rubbed both hands together vigorously before running her hands through Rachel's hair. This would not be washed out. And as Rachel's hair dried, it would become limp and look oily becuase it had been more than a week since the last time poor Rachel had washed it.

An attention to detail was important.

Using a towel, she vigorously dried Rachel's head. Then repositioned her properly on the gurney.

Checking her watch and going over the schedule in her head, Jeannie made her way, undetected, back to Rachel's room and deposited her on the bed. Then she returned the gurney to the supply closet. There, she wiped it down with a Clorox wipe just to make sure no residue of what she had done lingered on the vinyl.

It was easy to slip out undetected.

And in her drugged state, even Rachel would not remember her late night visitor.

Everything was going the way she had planned it.

There was no way Rachel would ever trust Dr. Quinzel. Not now.

It would make it easier for Jeannie to manipulate Rachel and gain her trust. Sure, the boss would probably be upset that this was being done behind his back. But she was certain he would appreciate the irony of it.

In the end there would be no Rachel Dawes. She would eventually adopt the identity of Amanda Cray as reality. And manipulated further, there would be no information left secret inside her head.

They would learn who the Batman was.

And in the end, that would be the best joke of all.


	8. Jack's back

Jeannie stretched out on the plaid couch in her livingroom. Her apartment was drab in color and a bit shabby. It wasn't like working for Arkham was a luxurious job. The pay was crap, the hours were long, and the work itself could be hazardous.

And because of the crappy pay, Jeannie lived a single bedroom apartment located in the Narrows.

It wasn't as bad as many made it out to be.

It was those who lived outside the Narrows who could not appreciate the area. Sure, the Narrows were full of thieves, murderers, prostitutes, and the poor. Sure, it was the dirty slums of Gotham. But some of its inhabitants were just fine with where they were living. It was a place to live where they could lay low and not draw unwanted attention to themselves.

Most of the cops who dared to set foot in the Narrows were as crooked as the criminals who lived there.

People were smart enough to not ask questions. And the majority turned a blind eye to the illegal activities found there.

You kept you head down, your mouth shut, and if asked, you saw nothing.

It was how you survived.

Jeannie did more than just survive. Sure, she may not have the luxurious lifestyle like those living else where in Gotham, but she was happy. She had a purpose. Everyday she had a reason to get up and go to work. A reason to smile and do what needed to be done. A reason why she never would never bite down on the end of a barrel and swallow a bullet.

She held the reason in her hands.

Running her fingers lightly over the painted surface of the mask. It was white with a blue five o'clock shadow, red circles on the cheeks and the tip of the nose. It had been his mask first, but he had given it to her. Now it was more than just a mask, it was a symbol of trust.

And a reminder of the past.

She had met him long ago, back when they were children. Back in Scotland. Back when he was a troubled boy with an old soul. They had been friends and the circus had been an escape for him.

Jeannie was the one who had found him hiding out in the supply tent after the circus had closed for the evening. And she was the one who made it possible for him to run away with the circus. She took him to the one man that could help him escape his abusive father and lead a better life.

Her father, Lamont Renier, also known as Bezzo, was the main white-faced clown in the group. The one in charge. All the others listened to him and did as he said. He was the one who decided that young Jack Napier would be allowed to join their ranks. And it was by his order than Jack would be known as Auguste.

An auguste was a type of clown known as a 'fool' or a 'joker'.

His old identity was left behind. Buried in the past.

The clowns protected one another. They had each others backs when it came down to it. And Jack was one of them now. They hid him from the cops and anyone else who came looking for him. He was a part of the family.

Auguste had been the brother she never had.

When she was sixteen her father died and she was sent to America to live with her mother. Leaving the circus was the hardest thing she had ever done. Jeannie had tried to stay in touch with Auguste. Sometimes she went months with never hearing a word. He stayed in Scotland a while but had left the circus. In his late-teens he had a bad run in with some people in Glascow.

For a few years she lost touch with him.

She graduated high school, then eventually college.

When she moved to Gotham, she sent letters to the last address she had for him.

The letters never came back.

The last letter she had sent him had been almost a year ago. In it she had told him what life was like in Gotham. How she got a job at the Asylum. About the masked vigilante called the Batman. And how ridiculous the crime rate was. The endless back and forth between the mob and the Batman. It was like being back in the circus, but without the clowns.

And then, a few weeks ago, she had come home to find a box waiting on her doorstep. Inside the box had been the mask and instructions.

Had the box been from anyone else she would have thrown it away.

But the instructions had been addressed to Punch and signed by Auguste.

Punch had been her stage name before leaving the circus.

And no matter how much time had passed or how much a person might have changed, he was still family. Clowns looked out for one another no matter what. She would do whatever she could to help him, even if it meant killing people.

Killing people was easy.

She felt no remorse, it wasn't like they were real clowns.


	9. Fear of Clowns

"So what you are saying is that you would do anything for the right guy?" Jeannie raised a brow as she looked to Dr. Quinzel. The good doctor was ahead of her in line, scrutinizing the salad bar in search of the right veggies.

"Absolutely." Harleen replied as she added some baby carrots to her plate.

"Anything?" Jeannie was content with adding a few radishes to her own plate.

"Yes."

"What if it was something illegal?" She was curious to know how devoted her friend was to the notions of love. Would Harleen cross the line? How far would she go for the right guy?

"For the right guy . . . of course." Harleen drizzled a little ranch dressing on her salad.

"How do you know if the guy is right for you?" Jeannie followed her to the cashier. They paid for their lunches then went and sat down at a table before the conversation continued. "It's not like they come with big signs on their foreheads that say 'Harley Quinn's Mr. Right''.

"That's cute." Harleen mused. "They should come with signs. It would make life so much easier. Why should everything be so complex? That is what is wrong with the world."

"Do tell." Jeannie sprinkled a little salt on her lunch before brining the two halves together to create a complete burger. Meat, cheese, a swirl of mustard, and no pickles. Pickles always made the cheese taste funny. A little more salt was sprinkled on the plate for her to dip the radishes in.

"Everyday some knew syndrome or psychiatric disease is created. Everything, every little action or thought or emotion becomes the symptom of something. No one has happy childhoods anymore. The world is not full of people, its full of patients just waiting to be diagnosed and drugged." Harleen shook her head in disgust. "I am so tired of these cases. Some woman beats her husband to death with a frying pan full of hot bacon grease and they want her diagnosed with a mental disorder and locked away in here. Never mind that her husband use to beat her on a regular basis. _It's not his fault that she's sick._ Why does she have to be _sick_? Why do they have to complicate things? The answer is so simple and obvious. She killed him becuase she was tired of him hitting her."

An idea began to form in Jeannie's head. It seemed her friend was sick and tired of how the world was. Tired of the boring, weak-minded majority telling everyone what to do, what to say, or how to think. If you thought differently or behaved differently you were automaticly labeled as being sick or deranged in some manner.

"What is your opinion of coulrophobia?" Jeannie asked before taking a bite of her burger.

Harleen had a few bites of salad as she mulled over Jeannie's question. Wiping her mouth with her napkin before answering. "I am sure the majority of Gotham could be diagnosed with that." A faint smile formed. Amused that her friend would bring up the fear of clowns. As if some people were not afraid of clowns already, throw in the dangerous clowns. The scary clowns.

Pennywise from Stephen King's It.

Serial killer John Wayne Gacy who dressed as a clown. Pogo the Clown to be precise.

The Killer Clowns from Outer Space. A good movie. She never looked at cotton candy the same way again. When she was younger, she had wanted one of their popcorn guns so badly.

And now Gotham had its own killer clown. The Joker.

"I would love to talk to him." Harleen sighed. She had seen the news, seen the horrible things he had done. But who decided what was right and wrong in the first place? Were they the same people who decided what normal was? Is he as crazy as everyone seems to think he is?

"Who?" Jeannie could see that Harleen had let her mind wander off during the conversation. Judging by the topic they were discussing, she was fairly certain which direction Harleen's mind had wandered off in. But she had to be certain first.

"The Joker." Harleen blushed with embarassment.

"Well, if they ever do catch him. It shouldn't be that hard to have a little chat. No doubt they will lock him up in here." Jeannie set her burger down, more interested with the conversation. "You should do it. If anything you could use him as research. Maybe write some ground breaking article or even a book."

"I could." Harleen seemed a little hesitant.

"It would show these know-it-alls that you deserve to be here just as much as they do." Jeannie was searching for the right words. The words that would give Harleen the little push that they needed. "It would show them that you are smart and that you didn't just wind up here becuase you slept with the right people." She knew it was harsh, but she knew it was the push Harleen would need.

"You're right." Harleen set her fork down on the table forcefully. "If he ever winds up in Arkham, I'll volunteer to be the one to treat him. Most of the other doctors are already afraid of him. Dr. Padecki has threatened to quit if he comes here."

Jeannie smiled, gradually changing the conversation to a less suspicious topic. Once lunch was over, she would head back to Ward B. There were rounds to make and patients to see. Rachel was one of the first ones on the list that she would be checking in on. Soon she would change the contents of Rachel's injections to a slightly lesser dose of meth. She wanted Rachel to be a little more coherent for what she had in mind for her.


End file.
